1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electronic endoscope system capable of displaying various processed images, e.g., a hemoglobin-concentration-distributed image. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an electronic endoscope system capable of photographing such various processed images with an easy operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, remarkable progress has been made in electronic endoscope systems which can not only display and record as a photograph an original endoscopic image of an object under medical examination, e.g., an interior of a stomach, but also can display a specifically-processed image thereof in a real time mode, a hemoglobin-concentration-distributed image, and an infrared image.
However, the above-described conventional endoscope system has the following problems. That is, when both the original endoscopic image of the object under medical examination and specifically-processed endoscopic images such as a hemoglobin-concentration-distributed image are displayed on a color TV monitor, or photographed for recording purposes, after the desired image has been selected by switching the images so as to be displayed on the color TV monitor, an additional operation for photographing the image displayed on this color TV monitor is required. As a consequence, various cumbersome operations are necessarily required for photographing such specifically-processed endoscopic images while a medical examination is carried out with employment of the conventional electronic endoscope system. Furthermore, since such cumbersome operations have been performed, the originally required medical examinations per se are delayed.
The present invention has been made in an attempt to solve the above-described problems of the conventional electronic endoscope systems, and therefore has an object to provide an electronic endoscope system capable of photographing a plurality of specifically-processed endoscopic images without repeatedly executing cumbersome operations.